A sterile environment is employed in a wide variety of different situations; the principal ones being in medicine and surgery, and in food manufacturing, processing and packaging. It is well known to package an article in an enclosure which is then sterilised. However, normally only the inside of the enclosure will remain sterile, the outside will become contaminated during subsequent handling. The problem therefore is to successfully dispense the article from within the container into a sterile environment without contaminating the article by contact with the outside of the container or by intermediate handling by an operator.